The Manual of Common Communicable Diseases in Shelters

background information, like G. Rosenberg and Wolfson's chapter on brain fluid and electrolyte disorders, while other chapters present only clinical information, for example, Damasio and Tranel's chapter on disorders of higher brain function. Some chapters even stray from their title topics: Hecox and Hogan's chapter, "Diagnostic Principles in Neuro-otology," for instance, scarcely even addresses diagnostics and instead focuses on neuroanatomy and physiology, while Richter and Corder's "Neurotoxic Syndromes" chapter concentrates mostly on substance abuse, virtually skipping the role of biological toxins or metabolic toxicities. On the other hand, such chapters as Kase et al.'s on cardiovascular disease, Chad and Munsat's on muscular disease, and Wray's on neuro-ophthalmologic disorders clearly and concisely provide thorough, up-to-date information about their respective fields. Laudably, these chapters provide informative, thoughtful presentations. In my view, this volume contains a great diversity of writing quality and content, reflecting an editorship that allows the book's contributors overmuch free rein to digress. The end product strays too far from the claim "comprehensive neurology." In light of other alternative neurology references, a clinician or any interested scientist might therefore find little of interest in Rosenberg's Comprehensive Neurol-ogy, other than some specialized topics such as multiple sclerosis, metabolic enceph-alopathy, and the aforementioned cardiovascular, muscular, and ophthalmologic diseases. The book's chapters generally offer unsatisfying whirlwind tours of neuro-logical disorders, never providing a unique or novel presentation of the material. Other contemporary works provide identical information, presented in a more pragmatic, informative, and concise manner, such as Swash and Oxbury's Clinical Neurology (1991) or, particularly, Asbury et al.'s thoughtfully organized and edited Diseases of the Nervous System (1992). Rosenberg's present work fails to satisfy the requirements for a comprehensive neurological work in one volume because it rambles through neurological discourses. The editor and his contributors have unfortunately and disappointingly produced a weak overall contribution to the neurological library.